Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Miscellaneous News

Potlatch, a small Seattle con, was rumored to be great fun. Friday night was, when I attended, but after that I came down with some sort of flu-ey thing and missed the entire rest of the con. No fun.

The best news I got while sick is that TECH REVIEW, out of MIT, is taking my story "Pathways." Last year TECH REVIEW did an all-fiction issue that was such a success that they decided to repeat it, asking if I would write a story "centered on some emerging technology." I chose optogenetics, a combination of genetics and optics that involves injected genetically modified, light-sensitive cells into the brain and then controlling their expression via laser light sent down a fiber optic cable implanted in the brain. A new science, founded in 2005, this has been called by one MIT researcher "God's gift to neurology." So far it has (1) allowed neural pathways to be mapped in mice with far greater precision than previously, and (2) some mice motorways to be controlled, including Parkinson's staggers in afflicted mice. Human trials are decades away -- except in my story.

There are still a few places available at Taos Toolbox this year, taught by Walter Jon Williams and me (www.taostoolbox.com). Come work on your fiction in the gorgeous mountains of New Mexico for two weeks! Or, if the open sea is your thing, sign up for a four-day working cruise in the Bahamas, taught by Mike Resnick, Kevin J. Anderson, super-agent Eleanor Wood, me, and others: http://www.SailSuccess.com

What else? Oh -- don't get the flu. And I had a flu shot! The universe is not fair.